Simply Ages
by MeteorLeopard
Summary: It was ridiculous! He really wasn't himself lately, drinking in bars and staring at girls. Maybe Matsumoto was onto something, he really was losing it… One-shot by Sugarfox. Hitsukarin. Enjoy!


Hello! So I am going on a bit of a posting rage and putting up stories I wrote ages ago. This was originally going to be a chapter story but I only wrote the first chapter and I am never going to write it. So I just chopped it into a one - shot. It was written before the manga told us what happened in the war with Aizen. So there is a bit of writer's licence, so to speak.

I have another Genie of the Teapot chapter waiting to be posted and I might put it up sometime over the weekend if you all want.

Otherwise enjoy this little story!

SugarFox

Simply Ages

The soft light echoed around the space giving it a more relaxing feel and bouncing off the black chic furniture scattered around the wide room. The high ceilings gave it a more elegant feel and the lack of overplayed club tunes suggested it was more than just a disco party location. It was filled with small groups of people laughing in a comfortable and cheerful manner, most with a cocktail of some sort in their hands.

It was of course what La Cherie specialized in, cocktails of every shape, form, type, and flavour. You could even have your own cocktail customized at the right price as long as it was in reason or pre-ordered the day before. Last week they had specially made a birthday cocktail with gold edible leaves, apparently some sad forty-year-old woman thought it would make her shine from the inside. It was also obviously untrue and worth a fortune, vapid woman… Tons of those naive and rich types showed up here, and they were all money and no personality.

Karin stood at the wide doorway of the kitchen and peered at the turnout of people for the evening, it seemed as though there was a huge girl's night out with the majority of the room filled with twittering women. Karin stared out the huge glass windows and her eyes fixed on the gloomy weather outside the warmth of her work area and hoped that the building snowstorm would at least hold off until her shift was over so she could get home. She really didn't want to walk home in a shower of frozen rain, get home soaked, and have to do her homework in the early stages of hypothermia. She had hoped in vain, and as she watched, clear snowflakes fall to the ground like crystal feathers. Damn cold and frost bitten feathers!

It looked like a dream, a world beyond where she was standing at this very moment. A world where she would rather be, instead of working on a Friday night serving drinks and smiling all the time. Her dazed expression and dreamy moment was broken by her fellow waitress and best friend, Kinhime, who accidently bumped into her while she tried to manoeuvre a huge tray of red apple martini's to another boisterous group in the corner.

"Sorry Karin! I am such a klutz! I really don't know why I have this job!" Kinhime called to her in an apologetic tone and then went back to her glass-balancing act. It wasn't unusual for her to fall over her own feet and it was a miracle she could maintain a waitressing job with her current level of clumsiness. How she did it made Karin wonder since she broke almost everything back home and they constantly had to buy more crockery to replace the things she broke.

Karin just shrugged and told her not to worry before she returned to the busy kitchen, swinging the wooden door behind her in a lazy fashion. The kitchen was busy and all of the people were hard at work getting food out to the customers in the restaurant next door to the cocktail bar. She waved at a couple of her friends working behind the silver pots and pans before she continued on her way through the kitchen. The colour scheme of the kitchen was black and white, and with a wry smile, she had to wonder if you would be able to lose a Dalmatian in its debonair interior.

She walked towards a long row of individual pegs until she reached one that was clearly marked with her name on it. Reaching out her hand, she pulled off her black apron and tied it securely around her waist before she searched for her pen and notepad, stuffing them both into the apron pouch. It was very busy out there and she took a deep breath to mentally prepare herself for the start of her shift, which were normally hectic and draining. A six hour shift from five pm until 11pm, on your feet all the time and dealing with drunk people. Didn't that just sound like fun?

She made her way back across the checkerboard kitchen. She dodged high cooking flames and crème Brule torches and wondering why she had to work when she was so fried from her long week. Oh yeah, because she needed the money, that's why. She pushed the sturdy dark wood door open and streamed into the crowded room to start what appeared to be the start of a very long evening.

Toshirou was exhausted. Not 'temporary-just-need-a-sleep' exhausted, but general life exhaustion. It had been a good six years since the war and cleaning up after Aizen had kept nearly all the seated officers of the Gotei 13 burning midnight oil for months. Who knew one man could cause so much devastation? Not Toshirou, that was for damn sure. He ran a hand through his spiky white hair as he thought back to what had happened over the last few years.

It was almost unfathomable, and to be honest he was surprised to find out that so much time had passed. Where did it all go? He asked himself this and countless other questions, rarely actually having an answer for any of them. So much time had gone by that he had actually had a growth spurt and didn't notice until he could no longer fit into his captain's haori! Now that is what you would call well and truly distracted.

Toshirou had actually had it harder than the other captains had, by not reviving only his own squad but also the fifth squad after Momo's pleading request save it from falling apart at the seams. She was like a sister to him and he couldn't refuse her, and it really hurt to see her breakdown after that bastard's betrayal. So he did what she asked because he was a nice guy, and somewhat of a pushover when it came to work, if his fukutaicho was anything to go about.

He had worked himself to the bone, pulling all nighters, barely eating and spending days cooped up in his office. After a year or so, Momo had fully recovered and had happily fallen back into the role of fuku-taicho, practically leaving him as the fifth squad's unofficial captain. He really didn't have the heart to leave Momo as Aizen did, so he remained in the helping position just for her. His beloved older sister who needed him, more than he needed rest or a life for that matter.

It was mentally and physically draining for him, for anyone really and he didn't really notice at first. Soon he found himself withdrawing into a shell, avoiding others as much as possible, and scrabbling to keep a hold on his sanity. Do not worry though, it wasn't as though he was losing his mind, he had just temporarily misplaced it and hadn't gotten around to finding it yet.

It had finally gotten to the point where Matsumoto had been so worried about him that she had called for an intervention. An intervention? What was he? A freaking drug addict or something? Although, it must have been obvious if she noticed that something was wrong, don't misunderstand him but his fukutaicho was on planet 'Me, Myself, and I' half the time anyway.

She of course was immediately backed up by Unohana, Kyoraku, and Ukitake who were all in complete agreement. They probably all though he was losing his mind and would end up like Mayuri, he thought with a wry grin and a twinge of affection for his crazy second in command. She really needed to drink less and think more realistically.

The Sou taicho then, taking the matter seriously, had suspended Toshirou from his job, and sent him on a compulsory vacation to Japan. Why Japan? He didn't really know, and to be honest he didn't really care. The Sou taicho had also called in Ichigo to man the fifth squad permanently, and Matsumoto was there to man, or rather woman the tenth in his absence. This sudden acceptance of responsibility on his behalf really drove her point home, and he got it, he really did. She was worried about him and he should just do as he was told. It didn't mean he had to like it, and he didn't. He didn't like it at all.

He couldn't believe it, him, a child prodigy, and extremely powerful taicho had been forced to go on a vacation. There was something not quite right with this picture and although there was somewhat of a humorous side to it, he was failing to see it without intense irritation. Though he supposed there was nothing he could do except wait. Wait impatiently until his time was up and he could go back to work. The Gotei 13 knew he was a chronic workaholic, so why did they do this to him?! He didn't go on vacations and he didn't know how to have fun. This was ludicrous!

He sighed and made himself comfortable in his seat, a friendly waitress had shown him there a mere five minutes ago, and he was beginning to wonder what the hell he was doing in a cocktail bar. This wasn't the type of place he would normally set foot inside. It seemed more like a place Matsumoto would enjoy and with a name like La Cherie, he wondered what the hell he was even doing here!

He had to admit it was clean, warm and had an air of class to it that he had never found at any seedy bar he had dragged his rampant vice out of before. It also was the only place open for three blocks, and was there to shelter him from the blizzard that blew up out of nowhere. He loved the snow and the cold. It was like a second nature to him, although frozen toes were just unpleasant for him as for anyone else. That stupid blizzard also completely ruined his nice and peaceful walk around the town, trying to pretend he knew exactly what to do on a holiday.

Entering the bar, he decided that he might as well wait in a corner, have a drink, and wait for the blizzard to die down. There really wasn't anything else to do, he told himself logically and studied the place he had stumbled upon. It seemed to be a chic and modern cocktail bar, and filled with scattered groups of people chattering in a manner that irritated the crap out of him.

Why were they so damn cheerful? The niggling voice of Hyourimaru in his head scolded him: Why the heck aren't you cheerful? You are on holiday and are supposed to be having fun…

He merely grimaced, holidays were no fun if you had no one to share them with he decided, and looked up to thank the waitress as she place his drink in front of him. With a smile, she left as quickly as she came and he just continued to stare at his drink as if it was extremely fascinating. To his left, about three or four tables back, there was a group of girls hysterically giggling and not exactly inconspicuously pointing at him as if he was some kind of zoo animal or something. He hated girls like that, the ones that were nothing but the pairs of shoes they wore, and what shade of lipstick they had. Girls in the real world were so fickle and he didn't want anything to do with that.

One in the irksome group flagged down a waitress dressed entirely in black, and Toshirou had to frown for a second when his gaze fell on her. There was something familiar about that girl, and something he had seen before, either in another lifetime or a dream. Her face was beautiful, her petite figure slim with slight curves under her smart yet sexy uniform. Black pencil skirt, white blouse, black waistcoat, and black tights cascading down her long legs. His favourite part was the black stilettos that were clearly irritating her.

What he seemed to notice the most about her was the impatient frown she gave the annoying group of girls as they flagged her down. It mirrored his exactly! It was nice to know he wasn't the only annoyed one, it made him feel a little less of an outsider.

He racked his brain viciously and a dim memory returned of a young girl, in soccer cleats and an annoyed frown on her face. It was exactly the same annoyed frown. He realized and gave the waitress another look, his gaze studying her closely. Surely, it wasn't her? She was much older now, but no less beautiful, and what was she doing in the middle of a huge Japanese city so far away from Karakura? He decided that he wasn't going to approach her, he was supposed to be here on a secluded holiday, and she didn't need him bringing trouble into her peaceful life. He reached out and grasped his glass stiffly. Knocking the contents back, he took a deep breath to clear his head from all the swimming thoughts.

"Has it really been that long Karin?" He muttered under his breath his gaze on her once again, and then decided that he needed another drink, and fast.

Karin sighed in annoyance and tucked a single strand of her long black hair behind her ear before she plastered her huge customer grin on her face. The ones that she reserved especially for customers that irritated the crap out of her. She approached the table of giggling girls all dressed in mini dresses of multiple bright colours and then wondered if they were crazy, it was freaking snowing outside! Well, maybe they were all cold blooded. She had inside smirk as she reached the table, tapping her pen against her notepad in an almost impatient fashion.

When she had first started working at La Cherie in the beginning of the year she wanted to die of embarrassment at the manner and dress of the women that pitched up here. It was always a case of, 'what the heck wasn't hanging out?' but after awhile she had gotten used to it. Their giggly bubbly behavior on the other hand, still irritated the crap out of her and made her want to punch their lights out.

Unfortunately, because they were the customers she couldn't so much as lay a finger on them. Apparently, it was bad for business. No freaking kidding, she thought extremely annoyed now, but hiding it as best as she could. She was a superb actress after all, how do you think she fooled Ichigo into thinking that she didn't know that he was a shinigami for so long? These stupid girls were the last thing she needed after a long day of university lectures and soccer practices and it took a little bit of effort to restrain her near snapping temper.

"Can I take your orders ladies?" She asked in her fake cheerful tone and was ignored by the group and they continued to twitter incessantly and point at some poor white haired guy sitting in the corner. The poor guy who seemed to be ordering another drink from Kinhime.

Karin shook her head at them and then had to repeat herself twice more before she managed to get the attention of a busty blonde girl in the group. After the woman had looked her up and down as if she was a princess and Karin was her lowly servant was she able to get their orders. Stupid cow, bet daddy pays for everything, how was the life of a snob? Karin thought darkly and wondered what the blonde would look like with a swizzle stick impaled in her forehead.

After taking their shrieked and jumbled orders, she viciously shoved the pad back into her apron and stalked off towards the bar to mix the drinks they ordered. The smooth navy blue carpet flowing across the area of the room caught slightly on the heels of her shoes and she cursed under her breath. She hated the dress code for all the waitresses, and would rather do this work in her soccer cleats than these stilettos, but the pay was really good and desperately needed by a student like herself. She powered through her shoe wobble and lifted her feet a little higher to stop it catching on the carpeting.

She weaved her way through the tables and in the pale light of the chandeliers, suddenly remembered the snow haired guy in the corner, and did a mental double take. He was in the far corner partly hidden by a rather modern looking fichus plant in a white square flowerpot. She couldn't really see very much of him and she had to curse that plant, she and the fichus had a long-standing feud since the day Karin had kicked her toe on the pot three times in one shift.

That really was the most unusual shade of hair colour, she had only every seen one other person with the same colour. This man's hair stood up in irregular spikes all over the top of his head, and it looked like he had a head full of snow from the storm outside. He looked somewhat familiar, but she couldn't be sure by just look from across the room. Careful to be staring like the groups of giggling girls, she dropped her gaze and wondered if it could possibly be him.

The person she was thinking of in particular had the most ice cold piercing teal blue eyes, and was younger and shorter than she was. At least he was when she was twelve years old and he had helped her out with that soccer match against those bullies. Although that was a long time ago and what the hell would he be doing in Japan, sitting in normal clothes and drinking in a cocktail bar?

Karin concentrated on giving the order in at the bar and went to check on her other tables, a mandatory part of her job, make sure the people are happy. She was an automaton as she delivered another order to a portly man and his diamante encased blonde wife. Who looked somewhat like she had had one facelift too many and vaguely resembled an anteater Karin had seen on television.

She quickly returned to the bar where Kinhime was replenishing the whiskeys of a group of serious looking gentlemen in the VIP lounge. Akame Kinhime was a no-nonsense brunette, who had clear emerald eyes and a friendly attitude that made her an easily likeable person. She was Karin's flat mate back at the university, where she was doing an Arts degree as opposed to the Sports science degree that Karin was doing.

Karin decided to ask her friend about the white haired man at the table in the corner. If he had deep teal eyes she would go over and see if it really was him, if he didn't, then it definitely wasn't him and she wouldn't bother. She wondered if she would feel a little bit disappointed if it turned out it wasn't him. She shook the thought from her mind. Even if it was him, she still barely knew him, and what were the chances that he was actually going to remember her? She felt a distinct urge to try anyway, what was there to lose? What was there to gain? A long lost friend? Perhaps and then maybe not, but there was no harm in trying.

Karin sidled up to Kinhime and put a hand on her arm to pause her busy bustling and wiping of the marble countertop. Kinhime put her tray under her arm and then turned her attention to her friend who looked a little pale under the bright lights of the bar area. "Kinny-chan, I need to ask you a favour…"

Kinhime gave Karin a curious questioning gaze paired with one of her famous happy grins, while Karin tried not stare in the direction of the object of her curiosity, that damn white hair! Karin could swear it was mocking her, how exactly she was not sure, but it really was…

Throwing her dishcloth on the counter Kinhime pushed a strand of hair off her face and placed a hand on her hip, in her usual manner, which was a permanent dramatic attitude. The only way known to an actress in the making. "Anything, as long as you do tonight's dishes when we get off work." In addition, a natural work avoider. She hated to work unless it paid and home dishes definitely didn't.

"Kinny-chan!" Karin protested in mock indignation and swept up the cloth her friend had just abandoned, and gave her a good-natured smack on her arm. "This is serious!"

Kinhime just gave her friend a wry grin and noticed that she really had something to ask her, and it was making Karin edgy. Kinny-chan was good like that, she was practically Karin's therapist, something she desperately needed after living through multiple hollow attacks, a crazy father and a brother who had to save the world… Oh yeah, Kinny-chan knew about everything, how else was Karin supposed to explain her constant disappearances and injuries? It was easier just to tell her about it and then have a person to cover for her whenever she had to disappear to kill a hollow in the middle of class.

"Alright, I will do the dishes, all by myself, on my sad little lonesome…" Karin had to crack a smile at her friend's fake pity party attempt and waved the cloth threateningly again.

"You sure as heck better do them!"

"So what's up?" She asked as the barman placed their drink orders on the counter for them to load onto their trays, with a curious look as to the topic of their conversation. He was a well-known eavesdropper and gossip so Karin gave him a glare and Kinhime noticed him trying to outsmart them. "Don't you have work to do?" He took her not so subtle hint and hurried off to finish orders rather than hang around Kinny-chan's sharp tongue.

Karin sighed deeply and glanced at the clock in the corner, glaring at it and its lack of speed this particular evening, before she began to explain what was going on to her best friend. "You know that guy at table 17 in the corner?" Karin tried to inconspicuously gesture towards him and Kinhime nodded once she noticed him. "I think he is someone I used to know, so I want you to go and see what colour eyes he has and then come back and tell me. Alright?"

She looked confused for a second but then just nodded and went along with Karin's strange request, sweeping up her tray, coincidentally with that white haired man's drink on it, and left with a theatrical sigh. Karin just gave her friend a fond smile and decided that life would never be dull with a melodramatic Kinny-chan around.

Toshirou still kept a watchful eye on Karin, and to be honest he wasn't entirely sure why he couldn't take his eyes off her. It was ridiculous! He really wasn't himself lately, drinking in bars and staring at girls, maybe he really was losing it… He tried to do it a little bit more unnoticeably. Especially he was sitting with his back towards her and had to half turn every time he tried to get another look at her. It was definitely was her he decided, there was no one else in the entire world who he could even compare her to, and he had only ever met one person who looked exactly like that.

Glancing from underneath his eyelashes, he saw pick up the tray, adorned with glasses of champagne, which he assumed were for those irritating girls. He watched her make her way across the room, and his eyes followed her, less inconspicuously than he would have liked though. Once she had gotten halfway there, that was when chaos ensued. Most of the people around him hadn't noticed that something was about to happen, but of course everyone else hadn't been studying the waitresses like a hawk. That was him, the stupid idiot who stares at girls.

It was at that moment that one of the giggly girls had opened her oversized silver handbag, and out jumped, what appeared to be an overgrown rat. The rat in question, later discovered to be a Yorkshire terrier called Fifi, darted across the room, yapping ecstatically at its newfound freedom from that silver sack of tacky smelling perfumes. Of course, being an animal of pure instinct, he made his way straight towards the kitchen, winding his way between tables, and nearly everyone saw it on the way past except for Karin.

Time seemed to slow down as the dog ran under her feet, Karin wobbled on her high heels and a huge gasp resonated around the room. In the blink of an eye, she had tripped over it and fallen backwards, accompanied by a reverberation of surprise, crashing to the floor. The tray of champagne, other the other hand, decided to take another route and flew up in the air, only to come crashing down right on top of her head a mere split second later in a flood of liquid and broken glass.

The second he had seen her start to fall, he had already known what to do. He had already shot up off his seat, and sprinted past the surprised waitress bringing his drink. There was a hushed silence and then over the sound of the bimbo shrieking for her 'Fifikins' the mummers began to spread and people began to gather to get a closer look at what had happened.

He zigzagged his way past all the people making his way to her side. He wasn't entirely sure why he was on his way to play valiant rescuer when he had just said he wasn't going intrude in her life. He suppose he could blame it on curiosity, it did kill the cat, but ice dragons? He wasn't so sure… Deep inside he knew it was because at that moment she looked exactly like she did when she was twelve and injured in that soccer match. Hurt and in need of a helping hand, and that was the Karin he knew, the tough help avoider…

He had managed to push through the group of giggle girls and made it to the center of the room, the other waitress two steps behind. Dropping to the floor beside her, he began to move shards of broken glass out of her hair with quick hands and then instinctively, as she started to get up, he moved a hand to her face, pushed her wet hair off her face, examining the small cuts on her arms, and one on her left cheekbone. She blinked her eyes a couple of times and he reluctantly took his hand away from her face as not to startle her before he asked her softly. "Karin, are you alright?"

She felt the sting of champagne in her eyes but it wasn't a patch on the alcohol burn across her skin. It reminded her of when she was little and her dad used to clean her soccer cuts and scrapes with a burning disinfectant, it stung like hell. She could hear a voice asking if she was all right and she felt as though she was underwater.

Deciding it was muffled and constrictive in her so-called underwater world, she managed to blink her eyes furiously a couple of time and examine the damage around her. Dammit! She probably had le Roux champagne in places she didn't even know existed, she groaned in annoyance and began to get up when a hand steadied her.

"Karin, are you alright?" The voice repeated softly before she could register where it was coming from. Someone had already begun to clear pieces of glass off her and once the person had managed to push her soaked hair out of her face she could see her surroundings.

Huge teal orbs stared into her onyx ones and as the view in her vision zoomed out, she saw the signature spiky white locks falling all over the place in exactly the same way as they did seven years ago. He hadn't changed a bit, well other than getting older, and he now looked about twenty years old. He was probably also taller than she was if they stood side by side.

"Karin?" His deep voice snapped her out of her little reminisce of the past and she looked up at his face again, strangely pleased at the presence of those bright teal pools. By now, she was dead sure that it was him, there was no way there was more than one set of those eyes in the entire world. Deep expressive teal behind long snowy lashes, not your ever day eye colouring.

Only then, she felt a slight surge of irritation at her old friend, if that was even what he was, by the way he had addressed her by her name meant that her remembered her at least. Was that a good or bad thing? She wasn't entirely sure… She then asked him in a confused and annoyed voice, for the first time in years she spoke to him. "You remember me?"

He gave her his signature-annoyed huff, the one he usually reserved for Matsumoto, as if she had just asked a stupid question, and then offered her a hand to help her up out of the pool of alcohol and glass.

"Like I could forget you." His voice had just a touch of sarcasm and her eyes flashed dangerously. What was that supposed to mean? Maybe she was just being a little bit sensitive.

"Uh huh." She told him shrugging and once she was on her feet, she bent down and picked up her circular black tray off the floor. Cleaning bits of glass off it and dropping them to the floor, she gave a happy nod satisfied with the job she had done, and then without a warning she swung it at him, hitting him on the head with a thick thumping sound.

"Hey! What was that for?" He held his now bruised head in indignation and glared daggers at her. It was as if they were twelve years old all over again, and absolutely nothing had changed.

"That's for not coming over to say hello sooner you idiot!" She put her tray under her arm, gave him a happy grin, and then ran a champagne sticky hand through his hair and he couldn't help but grin back at her. "Long time no see Toshirou, it's been simply ages."

Please review!


End file.
